1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid ejection apparatus configured to eject a liquid droplet(s) onto a recording medium to perform image recording.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is conventionally known an ink-jet recording apparatus configured to eject liquid droplets onto a recording medium to perform image recording. The image recording by the ink-jet recording apparatus is performed by ejection of ink droplets as one example of the liquid droplets from nozzles.
The image recording on the recording medium by the ink-jet recording apparatus is performed in the following manner. That is, a recording portion having a nozzle face in which the nozzles are formed ejects the ink droplets from the nozzles onto the recording medium while moving in scanning directions intersecting a conveyance direction in which the recording medium is conveyed.
Here, in a case where the ink-jet recording apparatus is capable of recording a color image on the recording medium, inks of a plurality of types (colors) are supplied to the nozzles. Specifically, the nozzles include nozzles to which cyan ink (C) is supplied, nozzles to which magenta ink (M) is supplied, nozzles to which yellow ink (Y) is supplied, and nozzles to which black ink (Bk) is supplied. The nozzles of four types are arranged in the nozzle face in a predetermined order. In the ink jet recording apparatus, the recording portion ejects at least one of the inks of four colors onto the same position on the recording medium while moving. As a result, various colors can be recorded on the recording medium.
However, order of the ejection of the inks where the recording portion ejects the inks of a plurality of the colors onto the same position on the recording medium while moving in one of the scanning directions is reverse to order of the ejection of the inks where the recording portion ejects the inks of a plurality of the colors onto the same position on the recording medium while moving in the other of the scanning directions. For example, where the order of the ejection of the inks onto the same position on the recording medium while the recording portion is moved in one of the scanning directions is cyan, magenta, and yellow, the order of the ejection of the inks onto the same position on the recording medium while the recording portion is moved in the other of the scanning directions is yellow, magenta, and cyan. In the case where the orders of the ejection of the inks are different from each other, even if the ink of the same color is ejected in the same amount, a color difference of the recorded image on the recording medium may unadvantageously occur.
In order to solve such a problem, there is known a conventional ink-jet recording apparatus configured such that an area on which a dot is formed by inks of different colors is defined as an overlapping-dot recording area. In this ink-jet recording apparatus, for a recording area containing at least the overlapping-dot recording area, a one-way recording operation is performed in which a recording portion performs image recording by ejecting the inks while moving in one direction of the scanning directions (i.e., in a direction from one end to the other end of a scanning area of the recording portion). For the other recording areas, a two-way recording operation is performed in which the recording portion performs image recording by ejecting the inks while moving in the one direction and the other direction of the scanning directions (the other direction is a direction from the other end to the one end of the scanning area of the recording portion).